Monday, April 14, 2014

All about the waiting

A couple of weeks ago, I was stuck. I had a whole list of things that I needed to get done, but I couldn't do any of them, because I was waiting on a mulch quote. I could not leave the house until the estimator arrived. Twenty minutes to go. It was not enough time to get too deep in a project, but well, I could dosomething. I finished up with obvious dangling needs ...and then, I saw a few more things that cried for attention.

Twenty minutes were filled with fruitful work, and then a bonus fifteen minutes, as he was late. And while those things were not necessarily urgent or pressing, they got done. And the rest of the week was going to be busy.

Later that afternoon, I found out that someone was arriving unexpectantly. Oh, I was so glad I was ready for them. Over the years, I have learned to redeem the little unexpected pockets of time God has given me. I have never regretted doing something ahead of time, but there have been many times I have regretted not getting it done.

Waiting is not a passive activity.

And as in my case with the mulch guy, the real reason for waiting was not biding time for the guy to show up, but what I was able to do in the waiting.

Waiting sometimes bears a greater purpose than what you are waiting for.